Man-Eaters of Kumaon

Man-Eaters of Kumaon is a 1944 book written by hunter-naturalist Jim Corbett. It details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while hunting man-eating Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. One tiger, for example, was responsible for over 400 human deaths. Man-Eaters of Kumaon is the best known of Corbett's books and contains 10 stories of tracking and shooting man-eaters in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of the twentieth century. The text also contains incidental information on flora, fauna and village life. Seven of the stories were first published privately as Jungle Stories.

After much prompting by friends and family in 1935 Corbett finally put to paper seven accounts of his Jungle encounters. These were then made into a small book and 100 copies were privately published under the title Jungle Stories and distributed amongst friends. The stories were titled, "Wild Life in the Village: An Appeal," "The Pipal Pani Tiger," "The Fish of My Dreams," "A Lost Paradise," "The Terror that Walks by Night," "Purna Girl and Its Mysterious Lights," and "The Chowgarh Tigers."

In 1943, whilst Corbett was wheelchair bound recovering from typhus fever, his close friend (R.E. Hawkins) and manager of India's branch of Oxford Press convinced him to write a book for publishing. Using the 1935 Jungle Stories as a basis, Corbett wrote Man-Eaters of Kumaon (10 stories) which was first published by Oxford University Press in 1944.

1944 - First publication in India by Oxford University Press - with 8 black and white photographs

1946 - Published in UK and USA by Oxford University Press - with 6 black and white photographs

1948 - Abridged Educational Edition published for schools under the title 'The Mohan Man-Eater and Other Stories' - illustrated by C.H.G. Moorhouse

1952 - Published in UK by Oxford University Press - illustrated by Raymond Sheppard (no photographs)

1953 - Published in USA by Pennant Paperbacks

1955 - Published in Paperback by Penguin

1962 - Published in Paperback by Bantam

1990-1995 Limited 1,500 Red Leather Bound set of Corbett's Complete works published by John Culler & Sons

By May 1946 over half a million copies of Man-Eaters of Kumaon were in print. The book had been translated into four Western languages (including Spanish, Czech and Finnish) as well as six Indian languages. By 1980 the book went on to sell over four million copies world wide.

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Wikipedia